I Don't Care
by RuthanneReid
Summary: Thoughts by Sakurazuka Seishirou - takes place just after Subaru loses his right eye.


I Don't Care

_You mean nothing to me._

_Don't you understand? Nothing. And yet even after all these years, you still seek to earn my favor. My attention._

_My acknowledgment. _

_Are you so little in your own eyes, Subaru-kun? The 13th head of the Sumeragi clan, most powerful in your generation - with a few exceptions - and yet you spend your days looking... for me._

_To kill me._

_Well, of course you do - I tainted you, didn't I? I showed you what real life was like, gave you your own pain, stopped you from living through everyone else's._

_You should thank me._

_And then I left you alone to rot in your own mind... what is it, nine years now? I believe I've lost count. And even if I hadn't, I wouldn't tell you._

_Fuuma tells me today that I have somehow misunderstood you; that your "one wish," whatever that may be, is not what I think it is._

_Now, how can that be? I know you - I know you better than any other being now living, and I know you this way because I made the effort._

_Because we made a bet._

_A stupid bet._

_A year wasted, pretending to love you; ah, I wonder if you ever really grew to appreciate what that means. An entire year of THE Sakurazukamori, dedicated to watching over your emotion-filled and largely useless life. That's a greater sacrifice than any **I** know of have made; and yet... you want more, it seems?_

_What do you want, I wonder? Fuuma tells me you don't want my death. Well, this IS a surprise; my torture, then, perhaps? Do you mean to maim me and leave me to my tree, try to trap me in my own illusions and make me suffer as I did you?_

_Subaru, Subaru, Subaru... I cannot suffer as you did. I would not know how._

_And now... Fuuma tells me that only I can fulfill your wish - and then he leaves. His version of torture, maybe; trying to make me wonder. Make me doubt._

_It seems he doesn't know me very well._

_I don't care what you want, Subaru-kun. I never did. I know what you want - at least, so I believe - but that doesn't mean I care about it. I leave you alive to suffer for now, as you did me, and..._

_...now. That... is odd. An odd thought indeed - whatever was I thinking of? _

_Suffer? Me? I have never suffered at the hands of any man, woman, or child - not even my own, and yet, when I think of you..._

_I... suffer? _

_The Sakurazukamori? _

_Pardon me while I laugh, Subaru-kun._

_The dragons of earth give me strange looks while I do so, but that's all right. I hardly spend my time seeking for their approval._

_I know what was I thinking now; the one moment... just one... of anger I had against you._

_Yes, yes, I do not love you, I am incapable of love - but you made me angry, did you know that?_

_You. The Sumeragi head. You made me angry._

_In a way, I treasure that; so few emotions besides desire and amusement cross my path that I don't even think I could properly assign names to all of them were we to meet. And yet... _

_You made me angry._

_A year I spent with you. A YEAR. Giving everything to you, giving everything FOR you... _

_Doing everything that a "lover" should do, including a few things you don't remember because I haven't given you the memory back yet - I wonder what you would do if I did?_

_You are very sweet when you cry out, Subaru-kun._

_Everything, I did for you, and yet...._

_At the end..._

_...._

_Of all people, Hokuto knew you well, second only to me in her knowledge of Subaru-lore. And yet, at the end, she misunderstood; she tried to tell me that you cared for me. Cared for me as something... "special" - other than the many, many others you had touched, cried for, healed, fought, saved..._

_Hokuto was quite mistaken, but perhaps as the only person you truly cared for, she can be given allowances. EVERYONE was special to you, Subaru-kun; everyone captured into your heart, everyone's emotions adopted, everyone's destinies forcefully intertwined with your own..._

_And in making everyone special, you ensured that no one was._

_Don't you see? You lack fulfillment. You lack your own source of joy. You lack. SO much. _

_And it is all your own fault._

_At the end of our bet, I think I realized a new truth, Subuaru-kun... in making everyone special, you made NO one special - and in a sense, you were just as locked away from the rest of humanity as I was._

_Only you hurt and I don't; I wonder whose bargain is the better one?_

_Sarcasm aside..._

_You made me... angry. Everything I gave to you... and I meant nothing to you. Sakurazuka Seishirou, the kindly veterinarian who had even gone so far as to let an insanely grieved woman take his eye rather than allow her to harm you... and I meant nothing._

_Nothing more than all the people you met on the street._

_Nothing more than the abandoned grandfathers you lunched with and adored._

_Nothing more than the countless people you've saved, countless ghosts you've exorcised, countless children you've suffered to touch you..._

_In making everyone special, no one was special. And that made me angry._

_It was really unnecessary, of course; I hadn't been trying to get YOU to love ME, after all - that was meant to be purely coincidental._

_Except that it did not happen._

_Sou, ka; I really must be bored to be thinking about this now. And yet..._

_... and... yet..._

_Fuuma tells me that I misunderstand you... your "true wish." I hurt you; I took your sister; I marked you as mine and then left you alone JUST to indicate how little you meant to me._

_What COULD you want other than my death?_

_You are confusing at times, Subaru-kun, I will give you that; confusing... and elaborate in your intricacies. You didn't even try to fight back, that time when I almost took you; when I brought you into my illusion and nearly fed you to my Tree._

_To feed one pet to another. How droll._

_ - even though it might be argued my Tree is hardly a "pet."_

_I was disappointed, Subaru-kun, but not surprised at your reaction; everything always made you cry. I even beat you, just to see if you would react differently and to SHOW you that I did not care._

_And, perhaps, because I was angry._

_Saa.... these things do not matter. It was so many years ago, Subaru-kun, and even if you are not capable of moving on, I am, and there ARE other things to do in life..._

_After all, I never told you to give up your dreams. I never forced you to drop out of school, to tear down and throw away all your animal posters, to take all your books on zoology and lock them away in your closet._

_I never told you to do any of that - but you did. All in favor of killing me. _

_Ah, now I am laughing again - and again, the others are looking at me oddly. Perhaps I scare them. As if they had anything to fear from ME with the end of the world looming over their shoulders..._

_Given all of that... what else... could you want?_

_What could you NEED, Subaru? Need so much that Fuuma has designated it your one wish...._

_So much so that he says only **I** can fulfill it._

_And yet... it is not my death._

_...I wonder._

_We will meet again, Subaru-kun - you will see to it if I do not, I am sure. And when we do, perhaps you will tell me. Until then, I am going to spend no more time on it._

_Unlike you, I am not obsessed. Move on with your life, Subaru-kun... I have._

_Until, and when, we meet again, Subaru-kun...._

_Until we meet again. _


End file.
